OMCOS was organized for the first time in Spain, in Sitges, a small touristic town south ofBarcelona, in Catalonia. The occasion again was marked by great talks by preeminent scientists
from around the world, with strong participation from industry and academia, graduate students,postdoctoral fellows and faculty.

Over 840 attendees gathered in Sitges from June 28 until July 2, 2015. They arrived representing
more than 40 countries. More than 500 were young participants (graduate students andpostdoctoral fellows). They gathered to attend presentations from 9 Plenary Lecturers and afurther 14 Invited Lecturers. In addition, 12 Short Talks were selected from the presented posters.
The symposium was dedicated to Prof. José Barluenga as the OMCOS 18 Guest of Honor.

842 participants from 40 countries
The conference enjoyed important support from various groups. Industrial support was received
from BASF, Lilly, Thieme, the Royal Chemical Society, the American Chemical Society,
Advanced Synthesis & Catalysis, Springer, Strem, Sigma Aldrich, Thieme, and Asahi Spectra.
The Royal Spanish Chemical Society (RSEQ) (Organic and Organometallic divisions, and theCatalan section of RSEQ) was a main sponsor as was the ICIQ (Severo Ochoa program). The
Yen Chuang Foundation also continued its long-standing support of OMCOS with its funding ofthe OMCOS Award.

The symposium started Sunday night with a lecture by Robert G. Bergman (the Lilly-OMCOS 18
plenary lecture), which was followed by a reception cocktail at the Terramar Gardens in Sitges
enlivened by groups of bastoners dancers, castellers and ball de diables (devils dance), as
examples of the very rich Catalan folklore.

The scientific program continued next Monday morning with the second Plenary Lecturedelivered by Jieping Zhu. Further Plenary Lectures were presented over the course of the week
including Helmut Schwarz, Kálmán J. Szabó, Todd Marder, Naoto Chatani, A. Stephen K.
Hashmi, and Sukbok Chang. In addition, there were 14 Invited Lectures from Sarah E. Reisman,
Vladimir Gevorgyan, Troels Skrydstrup, Naohiko Yoshikai, Marta Catellani, Pedro J. Pérez,Cathleen M. Crudden, Ning Jiao, Cristina Nevado, Nobuharu Iwasawa, Juan Carlos Carretero,
Jonathan Medlock, Franziska Schoenebeck, and Olivier Baudoin.
As is OMCOS tradition, the following 12 lectures were selected from the posters: MichaelIngleson, Timothy Clark, Junichiro Yamaguchi, Takashi Ohshima, Martín Blanca, Ssensuke
Ogoshi, Anna Company, Jean-Francois Soule, Naoki Ishida, Charles O’Hara, Lukas Goossen,Fumitosi Kakiuchi, Fabio Bellini, Alexander Radosevich, Martín Fañanás, Carsten Strohmann,Veronique Michelet, Laurean Ilies, Zuowei Xie, Jan Streuff, Takeshi Yamamoto, AlexanderDauth, Virgine Vidal, Itaru Nakamura, Norbert Krause, David Davies, Steve Zhou, Masahuaru
Nakamura.

We were again fortunate to have the OMCOS Prize, Professor Melanie Sanford, delivered herAward lecture on Tuesday morning. The Prize is co-sponsored by Springer and the Yen ChuangFoundation.

Two rich poster sessions on Monday and Wednesday totaling 620 contributions were also part ofthis meeting. Eight of these posters received awards during the closing ceremony. The organizing
committee is grateful to Thieme and the RSC for supporting the prizes.

Tuesday afternoon was reserved for excursions to visit Barcelona, in particular, to get to see La
Sagrada Familia Basilica by Antoni Gaudí. Other attendants decided to stay at the beach in
Sitges enjoying an excellent sunny day.
A Speaker’s Dinner sponsored by Thieme was held on Tuesday night at a local restaurant, while
the traditional conference banquet was held on Wednesday night and drew a huge crowd. At theoccasion, we thanked all the contributors to the event, from speakers to organizers toadministrative assistance and to the students that help keep the event on track and on schedule.

The week ended with fine talks on Thursday morning, the awarding of the Poster Prizes, someconcluding remarks and the passing of the baton from Catalonia, Spain to Seoul, Korea withSukbok Chang and Chulbom Lee as chairs. Best wishes to Sukbok and Chulbom. We will see
you in Korea in 2017 for the next OMCOS!